Twitter is a great tool for bloggers and businesses alike. However not everyone is using it to their advantage. It might be due to fear, unsure if the service is for them, or how to use Twitter. That is quite alright as this is a Twitter Guide that hopefully covers as many angles to help anyone on their way.
A Little Twitter History
Before getting into the tips and tools of this Twitter guide, it’s important to know a little history behind Twitter. Twitter was opened to the public in July 2006. It was originally dubbed a microblogging social network that people could connect in 140 characters or less. Now, this is not really suppose to be the daily happenings like “I am brushing my teeth” or “I am sitting on the toilet”, but to share meaningful messages that people can actually communicate back and forth.
Twitter status as of November 2014 is 284 million active users.
You can also read in depth about Twitter on Wikipedia.
Why Your Business Or Blog Should Have A Twitter Account
It’s obvious that there are enough people on Twitter that have some type of interest in common with either what you are writing or selling. So why not have a Twitter account?
You might be thinking that it’s impossible to market on Twitter… that it might be difficult to throw a campaign together in under 140 characters. It’s not impossible considering that you can insert links to other sites, pictures, and even videos into your Twitter feed. Each tweet is searchable, adding to your authority. This is part of social search… very much a part of search engine optimization.
While you should have a Twitter account, you need to make sure you are taking advantage of the opportunity to connect with others. Brainstorm what you want to do with Twitter in order to fit it into your business plan. You also want to make sure you know exactly what type of audience you are trying to reach or you will be dive bombing to the ground trying to use Twitter.
You might not be comfortable using Twitter, but you can always hire someone to manage your brand’s social network handles if they can do it better. Just make sure that you are still in the loop and your person managing social media marketing campaigns is on the same page as you so you don’t end up butting heads later on.
Strategies For Marketing Your Blog Or Business On Twitter
This part of the Twitter guide are tips that may help you. Some may be useless for your particular business, but others may be a great fit. Use what works for you. The important part is to remember that the end result should be a return on investment, which is new followers, subscribers, engagement with your followers, and ultimately… buyers.
Start Twitter chats or events.
Twitter chats or events are normally 1-2 hours long, depending on how many are attending. These need to be carefully planned and you should have a list of questions. Normally having a list of 10 questions prepared is great as it gives a lot of room for discussion and takes time.
Utilize hashtags.
Twitter tends to have a more serious handle on hashtags, mainly due to the fact that they started this trend. It is a great way to track interests. Some people will follow specific hashtags. For example, I normally follow #blogging and #wordpress.
Some people will actually ask questions and use hashtags, so if you want to capitalize on those asking questions on Twitter, check to see if people are using hashtags related to your niche.
Use Twitter lists.
Twitter lists allow you to organize your followers into their interests, rather then their news getting lost amongst the masses. The fact that you keep up with their information keeps them engaged and eager to re-tweet your posts, favorite them, or reply.
Utilize your Twitter favorites.
Those favorites should be geared to increasing your authority. Don’t be shy by clicking the star next to a tweet that is valuable to your followers.
Aim to connect with at least 5- 20 people you follow or have just started following.
Those people don’t always have to be different people, but just interacting breaks up your Twitter stream from all the auto-tweets you’ve scheduled.
Conduct giveaways and contests.
You’ve heard this before, at least for increasing traffic to your blog, but the same can be said for contests on any social network. The prize doesn’t have to be huge, but it has to be interesting to make the return on investment worth it… in this case either new followers or new clients.
Ask questions.
Some people are eager to answer questions, even if you know the answer. It is always a nice ice breaker.
Tweet and re-tweet more than just your own content.
It can’t all just be about you. Some of your visitors and followers are coming to you for the first time. They might know some of the other top dogs in your niche or perhaps others, this helps with creating both trust, and sharing other quality content to build your authority.
Capitalize on Marketing on Twitter With Some of These Tools
In this part of the Twitter guide, I have put together a list of various Twitter tools that you may like to try out that I use. A lot of people have their own personal favorites and I’m not going to discourage you from yours. What works best for me, may not always work well for you.
However, if you are finding it difficult to market yourself on Twitter, you might want to take a look.
Handy Twitter Tools
These are tools I love to use that do the job I need them to do. I know some of you might have your own, but feel free to compare the tools in this Twitter guide and see what works best for you.
Hootsuite – Hootsuite is great as it offers automatic and scheduled content syndication to several social networks, statistics, and more. The nifty thing is being able to have several streams open at the same time.
Dlvr.it – Dlvr.it allows you to schedule and automatically syndicate not just your own feed, but others too. You can publish on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and more.
Tweetchat – Tweetchat is very simplistic, but it is an excellent tool to try to keep up with Twitter chats or events. I find this handy for just keeping one thing opened as I like to keep it simple, especially in a Twitter chat that has hundreds of people jumping into the conversation.
Twitter Plugins for WordPress Sites
It’s important to note that you may not want to load your site up with a lot of plugins. You might manually code social sharing buttons, or use third party tools to automatically syndicate your posts to Twitter. These are merely suggestions for WordPress plugins to use that deal with sharing content to Twitter.
Revive Old Post – This plugin does exactly what its name says it does. It takes old content at random and makes it fresh by automatically posting it to your Twitter stream.
WP to Buffer – This tool allows you to share to different social networks including Twitter. However, it also allows you to schedule your posts to publish when you want it to.
DiggDigg – This tool allows you to share to different social networks including Twitter.
JetPack – JetPack has a lot of different extensions, but a few of them like Publicize and Social Sharing are good getting posts shared out to Twitter as well as other social networks.
WordPress SEO by Yoast – While this plugin is mostly for SEO, it has a social section that you can customize how you want your posts to look on Twitter. You will need to validate your Twitter card before being able to use it. Note: If you use the Open Graph for WordPress SEO, you will need to turn off the Open Graph in JetPack as these plugins will conflict.
Third Party Twitter Tools for More Re-Tweets
Social search is very important, so you might want to take a 15 to 30 minutes in a week to try one or both of these services that allow you to get more tweets and other social network shares.
Triberr – Triberr allows you to connect with bloggers and get your content shared.
JustRetweet – This is a service that bloggers can take advantage of in getting more social sharing for their posts. It’s also a way to widen their blog circles.
Free and Premium Twitter Campaign Services
I am sharing services that I have used and have found reliable in my own Twitter marketing campaigns.
Twitter Ads – This is Twitter’s own ad campaign system.
SponsoredTweets – SponsoredTweets is an Izea company. You can have real Twitter users tweet or re-tweet your content out to their followers. The fees depend on your needs, and you set the price, and approve who can tweet out your campaign. They give you some information about each Twitter user that allows you to decide if they are worth using to tweet our your advertisement.
Twitter Guide Summary
You don’t have to spend oodles of time on Twitter to get yourself out there. As mentioned earlier it can take 15-30 minutes each week to engage, and you can still automate the other content. The tools in this Twitter guide will also help make your social media marketing strategy a little more streamline.
Don’t worry about the follower count. Worry more if your followers are not engaging with you. Worry about what you are tweeting. You might want to sign up for Kred, or try Brandwatch to check out how much you are really influencing your followers on Twitter, as well as other social networks.
Hopefully this guide will help you if you are new to Twitter, or have been trying to figure out Twitter for some time.
How often do you use Twitter to engage with others? Do you automatically syndicate your content?
Have you had success on Twitter? If so, what tips worked for you?
Hey sir your twitter Guide is looking awesome website.and this post is also awesome.Please keep on posting.
Hi Nile,
This is really a great guide for Twitter Users to get more traffic as well as increase conversion rate using Twitter. I already use most of the tools that’s you mention here.
Thanks for the great post with some valuable and unique idea.
Hi Nile,
This is the best explanation on a Guide to Twitter ever! People usually make it so complicated that I want to run away. You have created such an easy to use guide that is fantastic!
Twitter is one of the social sites that I had to shave down last year. I had to put my focus on two sites in order to market. But Twitter is always in the back of my mind because I do know how powerful it is, especially when marketing a product and/or service.
Thanks so much for this Nile!
-Donna
Twitter is useful for online business. But how to utilize this for getting success, this is the big deal. I think this article consists each and every element of twitter.
This is super intense and awesome all rolled into one. I love twitter, it’s my go-to social media feed 🙂
Good tips. I need to check out some of those Twitter tools you listed.
Great post. Twitter is one of the most powerful social media outlets out there, in my opinion.
Love Twitter! It is so easy to use and it is my biggest traffic source for my blog. Plus they do not change their rules at the drop of a dime.
I think many businesses today with the modern concept use Twitter for their engagement with customers. It’s not only a way for them to build marketing campaigns but also to reach out and answers questions in real time.
After almost four years I finally am learning to take advantage of my Twitter account. Love it so far!
Easy explanation. Now I have a reason to use Twitter!
Seems like a good one. I have a small business that doesn’t have twitter maybe I should think about that.
What a great twitter guide 🙂 I know how to use twitter to an extent but this helped me out 🙂
ABSOLUTELY fantastic tips!!!! I have told so many of my friends who have businesses how important Twitter is and they just look at me with a 3rd eye! LOL
Hi Nile,
wow, what a comprehensive post, covering more than just the basics.
So, from what you are saying is in regards to ‘Favorites’ you star the ones of interest to your followers?
I like the revive old posts plugin which has great settings and helps circulating posts on Twitter.
Thank you for sharing your expertise!
Cheers,
Yorinda
Great tips, I really needed to read a post about twitter. I’m still learning the tricks of it.
This is such a great guide for Twitter. Thanks for sharing these tips, they’ll be useful for my blog.
I use Twitter daily and interact in terms of @replies and retweets. But I really need to interact more. For example, I’ve been involved in a couple of Twitter chats, but haven’t hosted one. I’d like to do that.
I use Twitter quite a bit but still trying to figure out if it’s bringing in traffic. It is hard for a Blogger to narrow down to 140 characters or less.
There is so much you can do with Twitter. I will have to use these tips for my blog.
Twitter has a lot to offer a business. You can reach so many people with just one tweet.
Nile,
I am saving this post as a resource for my book (only 2 chapters completed so far) about Marketing Our Practices.
When I started using social media in 2008, I was quite active on Twitter. I remember tweeing something about ezinearticles and immediately got a response from the publisher. Now, so many tweets are just lost in the shuffle. And I have such a backlog of over 800 new followers whose Twitter accounts I have not yet looked at. I do not automatically follow anyone because I want to see who each person is.
The only automation I have implemented was to retweet old posts. That seems to be doing great since many people re-tweet and favorite my posts.
I have been clearing out my Gmail inbox this week. Cleared out the promotions and much of the inbox (down to less than 1 page). But now I must tackle the social media inbox with my huge number of Twitter and Pinterest followers.
I keep forgetting to use hash tags and I have rarely taken the time to check out lists on Twitter. But soon….
Warmly,
Dr. Erica
Thanks for sharing these tools! Some I never heard of, especially the plugins.
I love Twitter: It is a powerful business tool. I agree: Twitter lists help a lot
I love these great tips – thanks for sharing!
I’ve been on Twitter for a few years now and I surely haven’t done most of these things nor I have heard of some of those tools. Great post! Very informative.
This is so helpful! Twitter is my favorite network.
Thanks for this great Twitter guide! I learned of quite a few apps and services to help me out.
This is awesome information indeed. It would help a lot of bloggers or business people. Thanks for sharing.
I love your blog! You are so knowledgable and helpful. I’ve struggled with Twitter but now I feel empowered by your tips, thank you!
This is one book I needed. I have a great handle on delivering content on Twitter. Yet, follow up has been my mishap. Thanks for the heads up and now I feel confident to use it to the max.
Twitter is a wonderful social network and almost every personality including celebs also use it. If we manage to get handsome amount of followers, we can grab enough traffic from it.
Thanks for this informative guide, I am gonna use it 🙂
I’m going to have to use these. Thanks for the great info, I hope it all works to my advantage.
Twitter is a very useful business tool ,I have had much more success on that than any other social media platform for building connections, friendships and boosting traffic to my website. It’s just a win/win platform, that more need to grasp onto and use!
Hi Nile. This is a fabulous guide! I never knew Twitter followers could be organized into lists. Also, thanks for sharing the scheduled content syndication tools out there. I’m going to definitely start using one.
By the way, I just checked out the Just Retweet site. Unfortunately, it’s only for business and marketing bloggers. Do you by chance know of something similar for health/wellness bloggers?
I really should utilize Twitter for my blog more. But I have such a hard time getting everything in that I want to say in one little tweet. #workingonit
These are amazing guidelines.
Actually I was used to follow some but now I ma going to apply as much as possible.
Thanks for the nice share..
Keep it up..
🙂
I didn’t know all of that about twitter – thats a really neat history! I totally agree that its a useful tool though – when I tweet with the right hashtags, I see a lot more traffic to my posts.
I don’t use Twitter nearly enough. These are all great tips. I need to spend more time there.
Thanks for this twitter guide post.. Now i know a lot of things about twitter and how it could help me 😀
Respected Nile,
Its not a useful twitter guide, but is a very, very, very, awesome and useful guide for those persons who don’t know the power of twitter. Truly speaking, I am using twitter from last 1 year. So according to me this is the best platform for new persons. If you want to increase your knowledge, then you can sign up with twitter.
Frankly speaking Nile it is not a guide of Twitter. But is a complete chapter on twitter’s power.
I like it.
Regards
Monu Kuamr
I definitely need to use more hashtags 🙂 Thanks so much for this!!
Nile,
I needed to reference this article for more information to help with my direction on Twitter. I love it. Once resource for my tech desires and clarity. That is what I get each time I come here.
Thank you for the years you put in to help all.
This a a great Twitter Guide. I really agree with you when you say this. More people need to read this. Thanks again.
Your post came at the right time as I am in the process of learning how to effectively use twitter. Your post provided so much useful tools and information and I am thankful.
Hi Nile,
Saw your info thru Kim. Thanks for a great post onTwitter, I have 2 accounts and know I need to really engage more there but felt it takes too much time. I love that you included so many tools to help us. I have FB, Twitter & WordPress, just need to coordinate them. I love social networking, but not seeing return on my time. I do have a brick & mortar business that I work at home for clients. I really believe that Seth Godin is right and so much is now done online that the “brick and mortar” businesses will soon be gone.
//Excellent post Nile!
And I have to plead guilty as charged! You mentioned in you opening
paragraph /that maybe someone is hesitant to use or take advantage of twitter because
of either fear or simply not knowing what you’re doing!
So it looks like I’ll have to plead guilty! Do I have a twitter account? Sure. Do I really have a clue
of what the heck I’m doing?
On the advice of counsel I’ll have to plead the fifth!LOL!
Thanks for sharing all the great resources!
Hi Nile,
You have explained twitter really well and especially the tools that can be used . There are many industry’s that people like sharing photo’s etc . Here in Europe many people like sharing food recipes etc on twitter . We have many well know chefs who use twitter a lot . But as you rightly said interaction is very important to get results . Many thanks for sharing your tips and advice .
Rosemary
This is an outstanding guide Nile! I’ve seen a lot of guides for using Twitter, but this one is the most comprehensive. I loved twitter when it first appeared, because it seemed easier to interact with people. I’m sure it’s just as easy now, it’s just that it seems over crowded and more difficult.